Making the Days Count

One yard sale and 3 loads to the Goodwill -- but this week we made great progress towards emptying the house.  And we ran the final errands to get all the bits and parts to take back to Magic.  This was all done while we experienced the first winter storm of the year:  COLD rain and wind here in San Anselmo and a foot of "Sierra Cement" in the mountains.  We are hoping the weather will warm so we can actually do a bit of hiking at Lake Tahoe and Devils Postpile.

But we jammed through our jobs so we could play a bit too.  Friday -- clear but still cool -- we did a long ride with a fair bit of climbing.  Out to Alpine Dam and then up to the Bolinas Ridge; down to Bolinas and north along route 1 to Olema.  Then back over Olema, through Samuel Taylor Park and up and over White's Hill.  I am trying to remember if there were any level sections other than the bike path through the Park.  My legs are still achy.  But the ride was beautiful mostly because the redwoods had dropped all sorts of red duff on the roads.  It was like riding on a red carpet.

Friday night we went to a Fish Taco party -- a tempting treat of what is ahead!

Today we hiked.  At 3am Alan awoke with a great hike plan:  from the top of Crown Road go UP Indian fire road eventually meeting Eldridge Grade.  Then down and around Lake Lagunitas.  Back up the Grade to the Tucker Trail and over/down/up to Crown Road.  The beauty of the hike is it has a mix of Marin specialities:  fabulous views of mountains, Marin cities, and the entire SFO Bay (today we could see the Blue Angels!), lush redwoods, dry chaparral oaks, banana slugs and black lizards.  The not so beauty of this hike was the entry price:  about a mile straight up in hot sun on an exposed fire road.  Once that was done we said, ok let's skip the lake section and trade that in for a trip to the frozen yogurt store.  A Deal.
But it was truly a lovely mix of Marin favorites.  We did do the frozen yogurt in San Anselmo and walked the Avenue.

Our  days here are about over.  We leave tomorrow; we will be in Mexico by next Friday.  And instead of snow forecasts, we will be watching for hurricane tracks!  Such is the good life we enjoy.